Padgett family hopes fed case will bring focus to opioid dangers

Former Rice University football player Stuart Mouchantaf, 26, of Katy is facing three charges in Houston federal court, allegedly for providing a deadly dosage of the opioid carfentanil to a former teammate Blain Padgett in March 2018.

Former Rice University football player Stuart Mouchantaf, 26, of Katy is facing three charges in Houston federal court, allegedly for providing a deadly dosage of the opioid carfentanil to a former teammate

Former Rice University football player Stuart Mouchantaf, 26, of Katy is facing three charges in Houston federal court, allegedly for providing a deadly dosage of the opioid carfentanil to a former teammate Blain Padgett in March 2018.

Former Rice University football player Stuart Mouchantaf, 26, of Katy is facing three charges in Houston federal court, allegedly for providing a deadly dosage of the opioid carfentanil to a former teammate

A former Rice University football player is now facing federal drug charges in connection with the death of teammate Blain Padgett, who took a fatal dose of the opioid carfentanil.

Stuart Mouchantaf, 26, of Katy, known as "Mooch," was taken into federal custody Thursday and is expected to appear before U.S. Magistrate Judge Peter Bray Friday on allegations he gave a fatal dose of a tranquilizer used on elephants to Padgett in March 2018.

Harris County narcotics officials previously said Padgett apparently bought the pills believing they were hydrocodone, a prescription painkiller. One teammate told county investigators that he saw Padgett standing outside the doors of the Sports Performance Center on March 1, 2018, and that Padgett said he was waiting for Mooch, "to buy some hydros," according to court records.

Padgett took two pills that contained carfentanil, which is 10,000 times more potent than morphine and 100 times more potent than fentanyl, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration.

Mouchantaf told investigators he saw Padgett on March 1 and gave him four or five "hydros," according to a prosecutor at Mouchantaf's probable-cause hearing last fall.

Mouchantaf who is 6-3 and 290 pounds, played defensive tackle on the Rice team with Padgett, but was sidelined in 2013 with a knee injury. Mouchantaf also missed the 2014 season after reaggravating it.

Federal prosecutors may have elevated the case to U.S. district court in hopes of identifying the distributor who concocted the lethal dosage that killed Padgett, said Sean Buckley, a veteran federal criminal defense lawyer who is not connected to the case.

"The feds are very good at building cases through cooperation," Buckley said. "If the feds want to climb up the roots of the vine this is how they would do it — prosecute him, get him to flip about how he got the stuff and then keep moving up the chain to get to the source whether that be the importer or the manufacturer."